


Mac's Bad Night

by glennjaminhow



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks, Sick Character, Soft Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 11:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17866700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glennjaminhow/pseuds/glennjaminhow
Summary: Mac has a very bad night; Dennis takes care of him.





	Mac's Bad Night

His heart is gonna leap outta his chest.

He can feel it in there thump thump thump thumping around.

It’s driving him crazy.

Why the fuck are hearts so fucking loud?

He slides a hand through his hair. Stop. Stop it. Calm down. There’s literally nothing happening, but trying telling his brain that. It’s just an ordinary, typical, boring Wednesday night. Dennis is in his bedroom. Their bedroom? He doesn't know anymore. Everything blurs together. He isn’t alone. He’s safe. But right now he feels very alone and not so safe, and it sucks. He can’t breathe. He wants to be able to breathe again without knowing he’s gonna throw up. He threw up earlier on Dennis’ shoes, and Dennis didn’t even complain.

But Dennis is wearing shoes because Dennis is asleep, and Mac doesn’t know when he’s gonna wake up, but he guesses it won’t be for a while because it’s dark outside, and this is the first time in ages Mac has been up longer than Dennis. Mac’s the best at everything, obviously, but Dennis takes the cake with insomnia. Maybe he’ll wakes up soon since he dozed off early. Mac knows this because he’s here; he’s always here and nowhere else. He tucked Dennis in even though he's felt like shit since he crawled outta their bed. Breathe. He has to breathe.

He doesn’t exactly feel right. Kinda displaced. Sorta like there’s a piece of him missing. Dennis describes the feeling like he’s floating around in space or drowning underwater or that he can't really feel it when he pinches himself, and, honestly, Mac understands that a little too much. He can’t do this. He can’t just pace around the living room anymore. His feet hurt. His head hurts. His body hurts. It isn’t from the quad thrusters or extra sit ups. It’s a deep, racing pain racing its way up his spine and straight into his brain.

Does he have brain cancer?

Oh shit.

He might have brain cancer.

But Mac keeps pacing anyway because the repetitive motion smoothes out a bit of the worry. He listens to his bare feet plop plop plop on the hardwood floor. Dennis took his socks off earlier when he was napping on the couch. He bites his fingernails until a few of them are bleeding under the sore skin. Nothing helps. Nothing helps. Nothing will ever help.

“Mac?”

He immediately whips around and almost falls to his knees.

“Dude, you should be in bed.” Dennis’ voice is soft, gentle, so much more than it’s even been before.

Mac stands in the middle of the living room. His eyes won’t focus. He’s sweating. He doesn’t feel good. But Dennis is there beside him in one swift motion. His hair’s soft and fluffy from sleep. His shirtsleeves droop way past his fingertips. It’s everything. It’s absolutely everything, and he doesn’t know how he’s even still alive.

“You’re ghost white, Mac,” Dennis whispers. “Please sit down.”

Mac’s teeth chatter. He can’t help it. He’s wrong and gross and a grain of the sand by the ocean. He’s lifeless, and theres’ so much Goddamn panic swallowing him whole. Stop. It has to stop.

Dennis ushers him to the couch. Mac crumbles at the touch. He immediately puts his head in Dennis’ lap. It’s warm. Safe. It feels like it’s enough somehow. Dennis flinches, but he cards his fingers through Mac’s hair anyway. Lifeline. Life raft. Life. Life savor. That’s what Dennis is to Mac. He’s his anchor. It’s usually the other way around, but there’s something very broken inside Mac tonight, and he can’t make it stop even though he knows it has to stop eventually because even Dennis gets breaks where he can sleep without waking up from a nightmare or relax on the couch without crippling fear grabbing ahold of him by the throat. Mac knows. He’s been there.

It’s gotta stop. It’s gotta stop.

“Shh…” he hears. “You’re alright, Mac.”

Mac’s nose is stuffy, but he can almost smell the fruity scent on Dennis’ plaid pajama pants. He remembers the lavender and vanilla shampoo and the mango body wash and good smelling lotion. It’s almost there. He wants the extra comfort. He needs it. Because the smell of Dennis is almost just as much hearing him breathe evenly late at night.

“It hurts,” Mac breathes out, wheezing and coughing after. “It hurts, Den…”

Dennis rubs his shoulder. It’s nice. Dennis has nice hands and pecks and hair and everything else. “I know, Mac. I know. It’ll be over soon.”

He tries. It’s hard. It fucking sucks. He tries to get comfortable by laying all over Dennis, his thighs, his chest, his shoulder, but it doesn’t work. He’s hot and sticky and sweaty, even though his muscles are icy. Dennis wraps a blanket around him. He tries the breathing techniques that he makes Dennis do. Dennis puts his hand over Mac’s beating - still beating - heart and counts out loud. The numbers are lost in the open air, like they were never said at all.

Eventually, it - whatever it is - loosens up. It’s enough so that Mac’s back in Dennis’ lap, draped over him limply and curled in a ball. Safe. It’s safe here. In this apartment. On this night. With Dennis right here with him.

“Wanna talk about it?” Dennis asks carefully.

Mac sniffles and shakes his head.

“Okay,” Dennis says quietly, tenderly. “Okay. Get some rest, baby boy.”

And Mac sleeps.

 

* * *

 

Mac blinks awake a few hours later with Dennis wrapped around him.

He may or may not have a boner.

Fuck. Fucking shit.

What the hell is wrong with him?

This… This can’t happen. Dennis is his best friend. His blood brother. They’ve known each other forever. Mac loves Dennis, but not like that.

It can never be like that.

Which is why this boner is a huge fucking mistake.

Can’t control it, he reasons. He was actually asleep, after all. But Dennis is different when Mac doesn’t feel good, and it does something to Mac that Mac really can’t explain. Mac wishes Dennis could be like this all the days, but he knows that’ll never happen because Dennis has been a dick since the dawn of time. Mac thinks he came out of his mom’s vagina that way, all cranky and irritable and screamy. Few things make Dennis smile, much less happy. He likes to think he’s the one person who can get real smiles outta the dude.

Mac knows what Dennis’ lips feel like on top of his.

What Dennis’ dick feels like.

Knows every inch of Dennis, because he’s been there before.

Mac can’t breathe.

He can’t fucking breathe. Again.

Mac pushes Dennis away from him. He can’t be around him. He can’t be anywhere near him. It’s like he’s poison or some shit. It isn’t fair, and he can’t breathe, and he practically slams his back into the headboard, sitting up so he can make his lungs act like actual lungs.

In out in out in out in out in out in out in.

In.

Out.

In.

Another breath won’t come. Mac’s heart explodes inside of his chest.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

He needs a cigarette.

(He needs Dennis.)

Nothing works. His head spins, and it’s almost hard to tell where he is.

His pulse fucking throbs, and is this what dying feels like?

Is he dying?

Is he?

Fuck.

Mac jumps outta bed, nearly trying over his bare feet and the quilt Dennis apparently wrapped him in earlier. Fucking shit. Stop. This needs to stop. Why can’t he breathe good? Dennis hides his cigarettes in his underwear drawer. Mac thumbles through boxers and briefs until he comes across a pack. He contemplates the five that are left all at once.

He escapes the room. But just barely though.

Sweat drips from his forehead, and he rolls up his sleeves.

Breathe. He’s gotta breathe. He has to breathe.

Mac opens the kitchen window. He lights a cigarette with Dennis’ lighter. He inhales a drag, letting the nicotine swell in his brain before he exhales. His knees shake. His heart won’t stop racing. His teeth chatter. He doesn’t know why this is happening. Why this keeps happening. Why this fucking day won’t end because it’s been bad from start to finish.

He puts his hand over his heart as he smokes. He counts inside his head. When Dennis is like this, Mac keeps him calm by placing a hand over Dennis’ heart and counting the beats out loud. It normally works.

It isn’t working.

Mac stubs out the cigarette and lights another.

Why is he so stupid?

Why is -

“Mac?”

He turns around, cigarette pinched between his index and middle finger. His hands shake badly.

“What’s going on?”

He knows it’s Dennis, but he can’t respond. His tongue is, like, glued to the roof of his mouth, and when did it get so hot in here? He’s about to strip his shirt from his skin when Dennis puts a soft hand on Mac’s elbow.

Mac breaks. Crumbles. Dissolves.

Tears pour down his cheeks, and he snots all over Dennis’ shirt, the grey and purple striped one that’s too big on him. Mac likes this shirt.

“Shh… Shh… Breathe. Breathe with me, baby boy…”

Mac’s head is on Dennis’ chest. They’re on the couch again.

He can hear Dennis’ heartbeat.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.

Dennis holds on to him until the world stops spinning, until everything pieces back together.

It’s so easy to fall asleep like this, so Mac does.

He melts into Dennis’ embrace. Doesn’t complain when Dennis burritos him in a blanket. Runs his fingers through his hair. Kisses his forehead.


End file.
